Current and future retirees probably already know that Social Security's retirement benefits are raised every year in step with the nation's official inflation rate. What you may not recognize, however, is that these cost-of-living adjustments (COLA) aren't actually keeping up with seniors' ever-rising living costs.

That's the word from the Senior Citizens League, anyway. In its most recent report on the matter, the organization concludes that Social Security's COLA has trailed actual inflation in eight of the past 15 years. As a result, the average retiree's current monthly benefit is roughly $370 less than what it mathematically should be.

Said another way, seniors have lost roughly 20% of their Social Security checks' buying power since 2010.

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Source Fool.com